Boris Johnson: electric vehicle plan goes flat

Boris Johnson has authorised deep cuts to an electric cars scheme which he launched last year to great fanfare, promising to make London the "electric car capital of the world". The mayor had promised to introduce 100,000 electric cars and build 25,000 charging points thanks to his "unprecedented package of measures".

The deep cut is to the funds TfL will now provide towards the Electric Vehicle Delivery Plan. When the EVDP was published last May £20 million was earmarked. But following the government's comprehensive spending review and resulting reduction of TfL's grant, that figure has been chopped to "some £6 million" in TfL's words.

The original expectation had been that further sums of £20 million would be provided by the government and by the private sector, making £60 million in all. This was expected to have paid for 25,000 charge points for EVs and 1,000 actual electric vehicles for the GLA fleet. Of those charge points, one tenth - 2,500 - were to have been delivered by 2015.

The "re-scoped" plan - in this case a synonym for "reduced" - envisages 1,300 charge points by 2013, but mentions no EVs for the GLA fleet. Back in February Boris announced that the previous government had stumped up £9.3 million and that a "range of leading organisations" including Sainsbury's, Siemens and Hertz, had pledged £7.6 million to "deliver 7,500 charge points by 2013".

Green Party AM Jenny Jones commented shortly afterwards that this £17 million on top of TfL's pledged £20 million totalled "less than two thirds" of that £60 million required to deliver the EVDP. Yet TfL had actually come up with only £5.6 million at that stage. And it looks as though that £5.6 million - or "some £6 million"? - is all TfL is now going to provide. I make that at least £37 million still required from other sources if the original ambitions of Boris's electric vehicle revolution are to be fulfilled. Time for the Mayor to schmooze his banker friends again?